Food, water, and energy security in South Asia: a nexus perspective from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region
Open accessAbstract
With limited land resources, inadequate energy supply, and growing water stress, South Asia faces the challenge of providing enough water and energy to grow enough food for the burgeoning population. Using secondary data from diverse sources, this paper explores the food, water, and energy nexus from a regional dimension, emphasizing the role of Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) ecosystem services in sustaining food, water, and energy security downstream. The analysis reveals that the issues and challenges in the food, water, and energy sectors are interwoven in many complex ways and cannot be managed effectively without cross-sectoral integration. The most distinctive feature of the nexus in South Asia is the high degree of dependency of downstream communities on upstream ecosystem services for dry-season water for irrigation and hydropower, drinking water, and soil fertility and nutrients. This finding suggests that along with cross-sectoral integration to improve the resource-use efficiency and productivity of the three sectors, regional integration between upstream and downstream areas is critical in food, water, and energy security. Within the nexus approach in South Asia, equal attention should be paid to management of HKH ecosystems–especially the watersheds, catchments, and headwaters of river systems–and to tapping the potential of collaborative gains in water, hydropower, and other ecosystem services through coordination across HKH countries.
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Sorted by citations
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“Third, the nexus acts as governance concept, aiming to integrate resource sectors across policies and infrastructures to promote sustainability and better resource allocation (e.g., Rasul, 2014; Laurentiis et al., 2016; Karan et al., 2018).”
Background
- Authors
- Rasul, G.
- Affiliations
- International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (NP)
- Corresponding author
- Rasul, Golam
- ORCID
- Rasul, Golam
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-05
- Volume
- 39
- Pages
- 35-48
- ISSN
- 1462-9011 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2120526077
- Cited by
- 550
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 57 · 2023: 50 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 73 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 26.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Science & Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- United States Agency for International Development
- World Bank Group
- Styrelsen för Internationellt Utvecklingssamarbete
- International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
- Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Transboundary Water Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Keywords
- water-energy-food nexus, food security, water security, energy security, Hindu Kush Himalayan region, ecosystem services, watershed management, hydropower, irrigation, drinking water, soil fertility, intersectoral integration, regional integration, South Asia
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